{"id":2350,"date":"2014-02-17T06:00:47","date_gmt":"2014-02-17T12:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.robertfeder.com\/?p=2350"},"modified":"2014-02-17T06:03:32","modified_gmt":"2014-02-17T12:03:32","slug":"wgns-new-fm-let-the-game-begin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/2014\/02\/17\/wgns-new-fm-let-the-game-begin\/","title":{"rendered":"WGN\u2019s new FM: Let \u2018The Game\u2019 begin"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"THE<\/a><\/a>A combination of seasoned veterans, promising young talent and a few players to be named later are teaming up as Tribune Broadcasting's\u00a0WGN AM 720 <\/a>expands its franchise to a brand-new sports\/talk station on 87.7 FM.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re calling it \u201cThe Game.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"David<\/a>

David Kaplan<\/p><\/div>\n

At 1:02 p.m. Monday, WGN will kick off The Game under terms of a local marketing agreement with Venture Technologies Group, owner of the low-power station\u2019s license. As first reported here <\/a>Friday, Tribune Broadcasting is leasing the signal of WKQX LP 87.7 through September 2015. The call letters are expected to be changed to WGWG by midweek, pending government approval.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going after a young, more educated sports audience,\u201d Jimmy deCastro, president and general manager of news\/talk WGN, said of the new addition. \u201cWe want this to be young and hip and fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

With two other full-time sports\/talk stations entrenched in the market \u2014 CBS Radio\u2019s WSCR AM 670 and ABC\/ESPN\u2019s WMVP AM 1000 \u2014 The Game is counting on its unique positioning on FM and what it hopes will be a more entertaining approach to sports in order to gain a foothold.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor everything the FM band is different. That\u2019s why people went to it,\u201d said deCastro, who turned WLUP FM 97.9 into a powerhouse of the \u201980s and '90s. \u201cIt\u2019s our belief that sports in Chicago is now analogous with pop culture \u2014 and that includes music and entertainment and movies. Like we have at WGN, we\u2019re hiring smart spoken-word people who, in this case, are able to talk about sports.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mornings will lead off with Jonathon Brandmeier (who\u2019ll also continue to be heard online on the virtual station wgn.fm<\/a>). The rest of the day will be sports-oriented, starting with veteran WGN sports host David Kaplan and Chicago Tribune sports columnist David Haugh in middays. WGN\u2019s Alex Quigley and Big Ten Network\u2019s Howard Griffith will host early afternoons, followed by the duo of Harry Teinowitz and Spike Manton in late afternoons. WGN\u2019s Mark Carman will be on in evenings, followed by overnight programming from NBC Sports Radio.<\/a> WGN\u2019s Jordan Bernfield will be a full-time sports reporter.<\/p>\n

\"Pete<\/a>

Pete McMurray<\/p><\/div>\n

Todd Manley, vice president of creative content at WGN, said a number of other significant hires \u2014 including at least two women \u2014 will be announced as those deals are finalized.<\/p>\n

With Kaplan shifting to 87.7 FM (along with cohorts Carman and Bernfield), he\u2019ll relinquish his long-running evening sports talk show on 720 AM, Manley said. To accommodate the move, WGN late-night host Pete McMurray will be promoted to an earlier shift \u2014 from 7 to 11 p.m. Monday through Friday.<\/p>\n

Look for more adjustments to WGN's lineup in the coming weeks. \"People think we're done at WGN,\" deCastro said of his rebuilding effort. \"We're not even half-way through.\"<\/p>\n

Although deCastro acknowledged that it might be \u201ca little challenging\u201d to draw listeners down to the far end of the dial at 87.7 FM, he has 18 months to perfect the new format and prove its viability before the FCC pulls the plug<\/a> on the low-power channel. By that time, Tribune Co. likely no longer would be restricted from buying a full-time FM station in Chicago to which The Game and its audience could migrate.<\/p>\n

\"Jimmy<\/a>

Jimmy deCastro<\/p><\/div>\n

This isn\u2019t the first time deCastro has put a sports\/talk station on the air in Chicago. As president of Evergreen Media Corp., he transformed the former WLUP AM 1000 into WMVP (for \u201cMost Valuable Player\u201d) in September 1993. Since the Score was still only a daytime station at the time, deCastro billed his upstart competitor as \u201cChicago\u2019s first 24-hour sports and personality station.\u201d<\/p>\n

The initial sports\/talk format lasted only three years before the company reverted to a simulcast of the Loop. Then in 1998, ABC Radio bought WMVP AM 1000 and flipped it back to sports as the network flagship station for ESPN Radio.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s changed a lot of times since it was [the original] \u2019MVP,\u201d deCastro said of his earlier effort. \u201cYes, we launched that format. But what we\u2019re doing now is a whole new show.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A combination of seasoned veterans, promising young talent and a few players to be named later are teaming up as Tribune Broadcasting's\u00a0WGN AM 720 expands its franchise to a brand-new sports\/talk station on 87.7 FM. They\u2019re calling it \u201cThe Game.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2350"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2350"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2350\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2378,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2350\/revisions\/2378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}